M-A-S-H
Platform: TI-99/4A
Region: USA
Media: Cartridge
Controller: Joystick, Keyboard
Genre: Action - Top Down
Gametype: Licensed
Release Year: 1983
Developer: Fox Video Games, Inc.
Publisher: Texas Instruments
Players: 1 or 2 VS
Programmer: Paul Munsey, Flora NG
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M*A*S*H was one of the many attempts by various software companies to take a successful movie or television show and convert it into a playable game.

In this game, you play the role of "Hawkeye Pierce," a surgeon stationed at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital #4077 during the Korean War (1950-1953). There are two main stages in the game, each of which you must pass to move to the next round. The first mission involves rescuing injured soldiers from the battlefield with your helicopter and returning them to home base without being shot down by enemy tanks. The second mission takes place in the operating room while you are required to carefully remove bullets and shrapnel from wounded soldiers... it is very similar to the classic "OPERATION" tweezers game by Milton Bradley.

Each set of missions are repeated four times. The first player to reach 999 points wins the game. There are four different variations of games, each selectable as either one player (against the computer) or two-player mode.

Trivia:

Paul Munsey programmed the helicopter portion of the game while Flora Ng did the operating scene. 

Ever wonder why the TI-99/4A version of M*A*S*H had a white background when the show itself rarely, if ever, had snow? Well, according to Paul Munsey, "A bug in the graphics wouldn't consistently draw all the pixels of the helicopter on any background color but white. Somehow the motion triggered some problem and our only known solution was to use a white background."  

20th Century Fox held a competition to see who could design the best sequel to M*A*S*H. By mailing in a description of your idea for M*A*S*H II, you could win a prize depending on how the top guns at 20th Century Fox viewed your idea. The Grand prize winner (awarded to the person that sent in the best game design) would get their name printed on every copy of the cartridge sold (supposedly on the back of the box) and also $25,000 in cash. 4 First Prize winners would receive AMC Jeeps, 400 Second Prize winners a TI-99/4A system, and 4000 Third Prize winners free games from 20th Century Fox. In April 2000 there was a post to rec.games.video.classic from someone who sent in a game design and won Second Place in the competition, click here to read that story.   

The Atari 2600 version of the game came packaged with a free M*A*S*H T-Shirt  

http://www.mobygames.com/game/ti-994a/mash
